Cheap Vitamins etc?

Ted_Hutchinson

treliac wrote: »

I have bought from this site and from another USA company,

Well if you used Iherb you'd get just as good service and cheaper prices IMO.
Remember if your import exceeds more than £18 you may get caught for VAT plus a handling charge. Iherb are cheaper for delivery as well as cheaper for each of the products I compared.

Ted_Hutchinson

dougz wrote: »

I am new here so this is the first I have thought about vitamin D(3?) requirement beyond the RDA, but given that I get very little sun I think it could be a big issue. How did you get your test done?

You ask your GP for a 25(OH)D test.

Most GP's don't know anything about vitamin d so you may need to do some explaining. If you say you have read Hypovitaminosis D in British adults at age 45 y:
and understand most UK adults have only half the vitamin d needed to enable optimal absorption of calcium and you want to check you aren't on of them you may be lucky and get it done on the NHS. If not ask your GP to download a referral form from TDL Pathology Website - About The Doctors Laboratory
these people will do one for about £40

But do also be aware that the threshold for adverse events is around 350nmol/l and most UK adults even in summer don't go above 70nmol/l. For Cancer prevention you need 125-130 nmol/l Cannell suggests anyone with a cancer diagnosis should aim for 150nmol/l

The only reason I got tested was to find out how easy/difficult it was to get a test. Risk Assessment for Vitamin D proves up to 10,000iu/daily is absolutely safe and thats double anyone reading this needs to take. I take 5000iu daily. My level around 147.5nmol/l but I also grab as much midday full body sun exposure as possible between April -September.

The bio-tech site you mentioned seems to be under re-construction today, can you happen to suggest anywhere else with secure online ordering?

I use 1899 or 18185 to ring them when it's daytime in USA.
You get to speak to a real person who will put your card details on their computer system so next time you order you can just email them. Only order a Maximum of 2 pots at a time or you may get caught for VAT + handling charge.
Placing Orders:
- Call 479-443-9148 from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (CST) to speak with a customer service representative
- Call Toll Free at 1-800-345-1199, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to leave an automated message
- Fax 479-443-5643, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- 24 hours, 7 days a week Web access
- E-mail customer service at [EMAIL="customerservice@bio-tech-pharm.com"]service@bio-tech-pharm.com[/EMAIL]

I think when I last checked it was cheaper to use bio tech direct than anyone else but that was a while ago.

Lifespan nutrition also sell bio tech
they also have a downloadable booklet to bring your vit d understanding up to date.

treliac

Ted_Hutchinson wrote: »

Well if you used Iherb you'd get just as good service and cheaper prices IMO.
Remember if your import exceeds more than £18 you may get caught for VAT plus a handling charge. Iherb are cheaper for delivery as well as cheaper for each of the products I compared.

Thanks Ted. I buy from the US when I can find better prices than over here and/or when I want products not easily found or licensed in the UK. Having looked at one or two of the items I purchase, Iherb looks to compare well. I haven't checked postage but will no doubt try them where they are priced well for me now you have drawn my attention.

I have been caught out by the import duty charge on orders exceeding the £18 value, so have been very careful not to do this again. Makes being able to buy maximum quantities for minimum value extra important, taking p & p into account.

Dr Sahelian's site is fantastic, not just for making purchases, but for the extensive information and balanced discussion he provides on a very wide range of supplements. I have yet to find any other source that is comparable in 'educational' terms.

Ted_Hutchinson

treliac wrote: »

Dr Sahelian's site is fantastic, not just for making purchases, but for the extensive information and balanced discussion he provides on a very wide range of supplements. I have yet to find any other source that is comparable in 'educational' terms.

Well I could, but it would probably get deleted, spend the next couple of hours explaining in detail everything that is wrong with his Vitamin d information.

If the rest of the site is as dangerously misguided as his vit d information then it's not a site that anyone should rely on.

I will limit myself to simply reminding readers that 400iu raises status by only 7nmol/l.
Most UK adults currently have a vit d status around 40nmol/l.
the oral dose of vitamin D3 to attain and maintain 25(OH)D levels >80 nmol/L is 2200 IU/d if baseline levels are 20 to 40 nmol/L to attain the level associated with least cancer/heart disease requires double that amount.

Putting out of date, inaccurate, information online is unforgivable.

treliac

IMO the site is very balanced, informative, instructional and with a sensible approach to the application of caution - as I would expect from a medical doctor who has spent many years developing a specialism.

To make judgement and base an argument solely around the debate on a single vitamin is hardly a scientific approach. For the record, I quote from Sahelian's balanced discussion of vitamin


What's the right Vitamin D dose for cancer prevention?
There is some evidence that high levels of vitamin D may reduce colon cancer and breast cancer and some researchers are suggesting people take up to 2,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D a day in a form called vitamin D3 ( cholecalciferol ). However, there could be a risk for vitamin D excess or toxicity when these high dosages are taken for prolonged periods. The 2,000-IU daily dose of vitamin D is considered the "tolerable upper limit" for vitamin D, according to the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine (IOM). Until we learn more about the side effects of vitamin D excess, I prefer users not exceed 1,000 units of vitamin D a day.


It is also important to factor in the level of sunlight an individual is exposed to / sources of vitamin d other than supplementation.

However, this is only one single area of discussion from an extremely thoughtful and detailed site, with continued and ongoing updating. Don't forget, there are always many and often contradictory views, even amongst the 'experts.' At the end of the day, you pays your money and takes your choice.

Ted_Hutchinson

treliac wrote: »

To make judgement and base an argument solely around the debate on a single vitamin is hardly a scientific approach. For the record, I quote from Sahelian's balanced discussion of vitamin

It is so utterly absurd and non-sensical to suggest only amounts of vitamin d up to 1000iu of vitamin d should be used that only an irrational person would suggest it.

Telling someone with a 25(OH)D status below 40nmol/l (as most UK readers currently are) they should restrict their intake to that which can raise status by only 17.5nmol/l is dangerously misguided. Risk assessment for vitamin D explains the safety in greater detail.
Come April when UVB reaches the ground in the UK, take off your clothes at midday, go outside for 20 minutes and your skin will make 5000iu. If you repeat the process you body will easily make 15,000iu of D3.

Only a fool or a conman would suggest obtaining 10,000iu/colecalciferol from natural sunlight is potentially toxic. To say, without evidence to back it up, the amounts of vitamin d the body naturally acquires daily, when given the opportunity, are potential toxic when absorbed in supplement form is simply scaremongering.
We must not allow those with a vested interest in promoting the sale of allopathic treatments manipulate the system so the total amount of illness is increased.
Try reading this BMJ article.
Doctors’ education: the invisible influence of drug company sponsorship

treliac

It is so utterly absurd and non-sensical to suggest only amounts of vitamin d up to 1000iu of vitamin d should be used that only an irrational person would suggest it.

If you ignore medical research and prefer to concentrate on the analysis of nutritionists, that is fine for you yourself but you should not be advocating such beliefs to others. Making an informed decision requires an ability to acknowledge and understand all relevant current information and research around a subject. The science involved here is above the level of understanding of the general public.

Vitamin D is fat soluble and is stored in the body. Accumulation of large dosages can, over the course of time, risk damage to health. To throw some extra into the controversy, you may like to read the following, which is an extract from:

http://www.marshallprotocol.com/forum2/2572.html

"Unfortunately, one cannot rely on nutritionists to understand the actions of Cholecalciferol. They still call it a Vitamin. It is not, it is a steroid hormone precursor. All the evidence I am seeing indicates our body doesn't need it at all. All in all, the misclassification of Cholecalciferol (as a Vitamin) is likely to become one of the biggest debacles clinical science has ever made."

Dr. Trevor Marshall, PhD


Some other sites worth a look:

http://pennhealth.com/ency/article/001594.htm
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003569.htm
http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/40001604/

This site is supposed to be for the discussion of money saving. It is not for pseudo-health advice, which is dangerous and unethical.

As a footnote, the old argument about vested interests of drug companies is well known and, as such, is not directly relevant to this debate.

lotto-dreamer

health76 wrote: »

Pop - first post!!

Saw this thread and thought I could help. Been lurking for a bit, but this is something of a speciality of mine and so thought I should pipe up...

.......Seven Seas stuff is nothing special (compared with the bargain stores) and should be avoided if you want value for money.

.....If anyone wants any info on any other bargain supplements then let me know as it's something of a speciality.

Advice, yes please!

I've been trying to find a good cheap alternative to Seven Seas Multi Spectrum but thought cheaper may mean inferior when it comes to things like vitamins (I particularly like this Seven Seas combination as it includes choline and inositol)

meant to add - I'm not keen on very large capsules which is why I like the Seven Seas ones as they're very easy to swallow

dougz_2

Looks like this is trying to turn into a vitamin D thread... anyway.

Firstly, that marshall plan fanatically Anti vitamin D stuff, that treliac quoted, comes across as bonkers to me. In addition to shunning any food naturally containing any vitamin D, they also advocating the avoidance of all sunlight, for up to 3 years! Their arguments also contradict themselves several times at which point I lost interest. I suspect it is best summed up by their own admission: http://www.marshallprotocol.com/forum2/4213.html "How successful is this marshall protocol treatment...? ...to date there have been no formal clinical trials...

Secondly, my mum happened to be going to see her GP today anyway, so I gave her a printout of the abstract that Ted linked to take along, to see if the doctor might get her a 25-D test. The doctor was actually very interested, took a copy of the abstract, and has called her back in to take a sample for the test tomorrow, and will do it on the NHS. The result should be back in a week.

treliac

Dougz

Perhaps this is more readable for you:

http://bacteriality.com/2007/09/15/vitamind/#3

I have no axe to grind - just want to rebalance this debate. But I do think it makes very interesting reading.

My main point is that it is unsafe and unethical to give advice and recommendation on health issues especially when repeating one's own preferred mantra, which is not grounded in sound and accepted medical evidence and where there is a significant body of scientists who promote the dangers inherent in such self-medication.